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     The Times October 14th 1931

THE REAL RUSSIA

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THE PEASANT ON THE FARM

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1.-INCREASE AND ITS COST

 

In October 1930, The Times “published a series of articles under the heading “The Two Russias.”   The same writer, who has just returned from another visit to Russia, now contributes further impressions of the country, the first of which follows.

From a Correspondent (Gareth Jones)

            The cities and towns of Soviet Russia are isolated oases in the vast extent of the Russian countryside.  Inhabited by a small minority of the population, they are not the real Russia.  Nor do the proletarian Communists who greet the foreign visitor, and impress him with their enthusiasm, represent the masses of that union of races, nations, and tribes which stretches from the borders of Poland for 6,000 miles to the Pacific.  The real Russia is to be found in the distant villages never, or rarely, seen by the traveller.  The peasant is the central figure of the Soviet Union and must remain so.  Not only do the peasants form the overwhelming majority of population, but also it is upon their pro­duction of grain that the Soviet regime depends.  The peasant problem will always be the most important in Russian affairs.

            During the last two years the Russian village has been stirred to its depths.  The Revolution, which in 1917 uprooted the workers, the nobility, and the middle-class, has at last swept across the Russian plains and transformed the lives of the peasants as 13 years ago it trans­formed the lives of town-dwellers.  The Bolshevist Revolution strengthened the feeling for private property among the peasants, and in 1927 capitalism was more firmly, entrenched in the villages than it had ever been.  The disappearance of large-scale farming, the splitting up of the land among 26,000,000 small households and the re-emergence of a kulak class which employed the labour of others, were a danger to the Communist power.  With energy, ruthlessness, and confidence that it would overcome all obstacles, the Communist Party launched its policy of collectivization.  For two years this policy has been pursued.  How does the peasant react to collectivization?  What methods have been employed in, this unprecedented attack on private propertyHow far has it succeeded?  How will it affect the industrialization plans of the ‘Government?  The following observations on these questions are based on unconducted visits to collective farms and to State farms.  The writer, who had no difficulty in travelling wherever he wished and wandered on foot to whatever farms he pleased, was able to gain the confidence of a large number of peasants in different parts of Russia.  The unanimity of their views was striking.

HARRYING THE KULAKS

            The Stalin kolkhoz (collective farm) was in a district of complete collectivization.  Since 1929, when it had its beginnings in the village, the kolkhoz had been in the turmoil of class warfare, but now, in the autumn of l931, all was calm again.  The president of the Village Soviet, a keen, energetic young Communist, before whom the older peasants bowed low and bared their heads respectfully, explained with pride how they had achieved unity in the village.  “We had 40 kulak families and we sent them all away.  It was not enough to send the men only, because we must pluck up all the kulak elements by the roots.  So we sent the women and children too.  They went to Solovki, or to Siberia to cut wood or to work on the railways.  In six years, if they have shown themselves on our side, they will be allowed to return.  We leave the very old kulaks here, because they are no danger to the Soviet power.  Now the fight against the kulaks has ended in our victory for the last kulak went a month ago.  He was the ringleader of a religious sect in the village.  He collected a number of peasants in his house and told them in meetings that the Communists wished to starve all the peasants.  He prophesied that war would come and that the Pope that Rome would visit the village and would hang all the Communists.  That was counter-revolutionary agitation, so now that ringleader is in Siberia doing hard labour.  He is working as hard as those farm labourers he used to hire.”

The dekulakization “ which the president of the Village Soviet of the Stalin kolkhoz described has been vigorously pursued throughout the country. As the steamer on which I travelled was going down the Volga, a hundred peasants, men, women, and children, with all their goods and chattels, could be seen sitting motionless on the bank, staring at the river in hopeless despair.  A woman on the boat turned to me and said quietly, “Do you see those?  They are kulaks, being exiled, just because they have worked hard throughout their lives.  The peasants have been sent away in thousands to starve.  It is terrible how they have treated them.  They have not been given bread-cards or anything.  A large number were sent to Tashkent and were left bewildered on the town square.  They did not know what to do and very many starved to death.”

THE GERMAN COLONISTS

            The German colonists have suffered equally.  The president of a German collective farm in­formed that in his village of 600 inhabitants, six families with women and children had been exiled.  In the same village a woman described how the kulaks had been banished.  “ We received letters,” she added, “telling us that from the German colony of several villages in the district 90 kulak children had died on the journey to Siberia or on arrival there.  We are afraid of being sent away as kulaks, because they might say you were a kulak for political or personal reasons.  We had a letter from one of the kulaks saying that they were cutting wood far away in Siberia, that life was terribly hard and that they did not have enough to eat.”

This fear of being exiled as a kulak has been a powerful factor in drawing into the collective farms.  In the Stalin kolkhoz, upon which I stayed, a sharp-eyed, dark-haired peasant approached me in the Village Soviet hut in the presence of the Communist president.  He spoke to me of the successes of the kolkhoz, of the enthusiasm of the country for the collective farm movement, amid of the affection of the peasants for their young Bolshevist leader.  This last statement was accompanied by a friendly slap on the back of the president of the Village Soviet.  Next morning, however, when far away from any of the Communist members of the kolkhoz, the same peasant, who to all appearance was an enthusiastic supporter of the Soviet power, approached me and whispered:  “It is terrible here in the kolkhoz.  We cannot speak or we shall be sent away to Siberia as they sent the others.  We are afraid.  I had three cows.  They took them away and now I only get a crust of bread.  It is a thousand times worse now than before the Revolution; 1926 and 1927 were fine years, but now we dare not oppose the Communists or we shall be exiled.  We have to keep quiet.”

 Dissatisfaction with the treatment of the kulaks has spread to the Red army and to the towns.  A village girl working in Moscow described how her cousins had fared: “The peasants have been forced to join the collective farms.  Take my two cousins.  They worked night and day, day and night.  With their own hands they built fine cottages, and what happened.  They refused to join the kolkhoz and they were sent away to the Urals, where it is very, very bad.  And there is my other cousin.  He had two cows, two pigs, and some sheep and he owned two huts.  They called him a kulak and they forced him to sell all he had.  Only 300 roubles did they give for everything – cows and huts and all.  The other peasants in the village were told that if they did not join the collective farm they would be sent to Archangel, or the Urals or Siberia.  So, of course, they joined.  They had trouble with some peasants.  In my village they murdered two Communists.”

In such a way were the kulaks liquidated and scattered throughout Russia to work in the forests, in mines, and on the roads.  The period of the liquidation of the kulak has almost ended.  The policy of the Communist Party has triumphed for they have crushed their enemies in the villages and 60 percent of the peasant households are now members of collective farms.  The day of the individual farmer is over, and pressed by high taxes fearing lest his house be taken away from him or dreading a hungry exile in Siberia, he becomes a member of a collective farm.  He is dazed, his old life is shattered and he does not know what the future has in store.  It would be premature to draw final conclusions for collective farms are in their infancy; but the reactions of the peasants can be concisely described.  Throughout Russia on hears the same tale: “They took away our cow.  How can it get a better if we have no land and no cow?”  The cry of the Russian peasant has always been “Land and Liberty”, and it is the same cry today.

ONE COW AND NONE

In many collective farms the peasant is allowed to maintain one cow in his courtyard.  In the Stalin collective farm where I stayed, the socialisation had made greater strides, and all cattle, pigs, and sheep had become the property of the community.  The dvor (farmyard) was empty, and this was tragically strange to the peasant who from his birth had been accustomed to his animals in the farmyard.  “Our dvor is empty,” says the peasant sadly, and he cannot reconcile himself to the ghostly silence behind his hut.  He bewails also the lack of food and clothing on the farms.  On the Stalin farmwomen receive ten pounds of black bread a month and cabbage soup, while those who remain at home receive nothing at all.  In the Ukraine, in one collective the ration was 20 lb.  The peasants complain: “Come and see the grain, rotten grain: that is what they keep for us.  All the best grain is sent to the nearest town for export, and we do not get enough to eat.  Poor Mother Russia is in a sorry plight.  What we want is land and our own cows.”  In some villages the government seizure of grain has lead ton fighting between the peasants and the Communist authorities.

To the peasant accustomed to till his own strips of land and milk his own cow whenever he wishes, the system is irksome.  The collective farm is divided into a number of brigades, each commanded by a brigadier, who in general is young Communist.  The kolkhoz administration decides how many worker shall take part in the threshing, how many in the ploughing, or how many in the milking.  One peasant expressed his feelings towards the system in the following words: “It is like being in the army when one is sent out with the brigade.”

PIECEWORK

The brigadier has the task of deciding how much work each peasant has carried out, for much stress is now being laid upon piecework in the villages.  Equal pay proved a disastrous failure in the collective farms, for there is no incentive to work, and there was difficulty in persuading the less conscientious peasants to go out in the fields.  Since piecework was introduced the work has been more satisfactory.  Each collective farm worker has a book in which the brigadier inscribes each day the amount of work he has done.  Upon this book is printed the following rule from the Sixth Congress of the Soviets held in March: “He who works most and best shall receive the most; he who does not work at all shall receive nothing; this should be the rule for all collective farm members and collective farms.”  Each collective member has his task to perform.  If he carries out the task his day’s work counts as one working day.  If he exceeds the task by 20%, then his day is 1.20 working day; if he only ploughs half the average set, his work for the day is inscribed in his book as .50 working day.  At the end of the year the amount of work he has performed is reckoned and the profits of the collective farm are shared among the members according to the number of days they have shown in their books.  Throughout the year the peasant receives a monthly advance.  This piecework system, while imprisoning the worker in the shackles of bureaucracy, leads to better work than the system of equal pay.  It demands, however, good accountants, who are not numerous in Russia.

Among the poorer peasants the kolkhoz movement has keen supporters.  In one collective farm one old white-haired man bowed deeply and groaned: “Have pity on me!  My courtyard is empty.  Three horses and three cows have they taken from me and now they are getting thin and scraggy because they are not well kept. How can I get enough to eat?  It is a dogs life.”  A woman was passing and stopped to shriek at him.  “Its little pity you deserve!  You had your horses.  You had your cows and you had little pity for us poor peasants then.  I had no cow and no horse.  I am better off under the kolkhoz.”

MODERN METHODS

To what extent the happiness of the peasant may be affected, there is no doubt that production will increase.  The old methods of tilling the land in Russia are giving way to the modern methods of science.  The introduction of machinery, although the tractors may now be wrecked and left out in all weathers will in time lead to more grain and this would have been impossible without the ruthless suppression of the strip system.  The influence of this upon the regime is inestimable.  In the future the peasant will not be able to menace the towns without withholding his grain, for Communist control over the collective farms is supreme and whereas until two or three years ago the task of the authorities in the collecting of grain as a formidable one, it is now simplified by the concentration of the grain into collective farm stock.  Having won the battle against the peasant, the Soviet regime finds itself in a stronger position than it has ever been before, and assured of a stable supply of bread for the towns, for the Red Army or the G.P.U, it is able to devote its energies to its plan of industrialisation.

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 October 15th 1931

     THE REAL RUSSIA

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THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PLAN

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            II. – FROM THE FARM TO THE FACTORY

   From a Correspondent (Gareth Jones)

Bread is not the only produce of the collective farm.  Labour is almost of equal importance at a time when there is a grave shortage of workers menacing the fulfilment of the Five-Years Plan.  The collective farm has the duty of supplying the factories not only with grain but also with men.  The urgent necessity of obtaining labour supply from the collective farms was the first point in Stalin’s speech on June 23.  The use of machinery and the better organization of work upon the farms will, it is argued, liberate for the factories many millions of workers who will not be needed in an agriculture so mechanized as to cut down the number of hands required.  These surplus peasants (otkhodniki) are to be recruit for the industrial areas.  To some factories the peasants go willingly, eager for travel and new experiences.  But such districts as the Donetz Basin, where living conditions are pitiable, where there are insufficient houses, and where epidemics are rife, have an evil reputation in the villages.

Strengthened by supplies of bread and labour from collective farms the Government, assured of stability, has fair greater chance of success in the field of industrialization than it had when the central figure in Russian agriculture was the individual farmer.  The “Third Decisive Year of the Five Years Plan” has seen great progress in many branches of industry.  There is a distinct increase in the quantity of goods produced and a large number of new factories are scheduled to open this yearThe oil industry is making rapid strides and Soviet Russia has become the second oil producing country of the world.  The exports of grain last winter, although they were less than one-half the average pre-War exports, far surpassed the figure expected.  The Soviet Union has become a cotton-growing country.  New mineral and chemical resources are being continually discovered beneath the rich Russian soil and will be rapidly exploited by the construction of new metallurgical bases in the Ural-Kuznetzk, area in Magnitogorsk and in Central Asia. Vast works, such as the Stalingrad and the Kharkov tractor factories, the Autostroy in Nizhni-Novgorod, which is to produce 140,000 motor cars and lorries annually and the Dnieprostroy, area which will provide power for a industrial area of a million inhabitants are being built under the supervision of foreign engineers.  New housing schemes, including  “Socialist cities,” are being executed.  Russian industry is moving eastward with the opening up of Siberia.  Excellent new roads are being constructed in the leading towns, and the streets of Moscow have improved beyond recognition.  These are indeed achievements, although attained at the expense of profound suffering.  Most striking of all is the absence of unemployment.  In Russia the beggars who plead for alms are all of a dying generation and are a striking contrast, to the workless youths who beg in the streets of Berlin and other capitals.

HUNGRY WORKERS

            Nevertheless, there are grave difficulties confronting the Plan of Industrialization.  First and foremost are the strain of living conditions and the disillusionment of the workers.  While the proletarians have benefited by shorter working hours, by the setting up of clubs, by educational facilities and by longer holidays there is yet grave dissatisfaction at the shortage of food and of goods and at the lack of liberty.  The workers who are not politically minded and they form as in all countries, the great majority, state that before the revolution everything could be bought at cheap prices, whereas, now the cooperative shops do not provide enough for a man to live.  They are forced, they complain to buy on the private market at exorbitant, prices and even then they remain hungry.  Among the general workers there is little of that faith in the future, which is so striking in the Communist.  Disbelief in the newspapers and in propaganda is widespread.  On being confronted by some figures showing that the Five-Years Plan was being completed in two and half years, one factory worker replied: “You cannot eat figures.  The Five-Years Plan is on paper.  You see that tree over there; it is no apple tree, is it?  But the Communists say.  ‘Tomorrow that tree has to grow apples.’”

            To mention the word “voluntary” must rouse the anger of the average Russian.  A young Moscow factory worker surrounded by three of his fellows, best expressed the Soviet significance of the word.  “In our factory we cannot say a single thing.  They say that everything is voluntary.  Voluntary indeed!  The party cell decides everything before hand arranges a meeting, where resolutions are passed unanimously by the questions being put, ‘Who is against?’  Nobody, of course, wishes to get into trouble and put his hand up for fear he might disappear, as many have disappeared.”  Another Moscow factory worker, who was indignant against the Soviet government for sending food abroad, expressed the wish, “If only we could vote secretly.”  The way in which workers were ‘voluntarily’ obliged to pay one month’s wages to the various loans, such as the “Third Decisive Year Loan,” has also left bitterness among the population.  The practice of obliging workers from one factory to devote ‘voluntarily’ their free day to labour as ‘subbotniki’ in another factory or in constructive work, or in road building, deprives factory hands, clerks, teachers and others of their holiday.  But it is, above all, the nervous strain caused by under-nourishment and over-crowding that makes the life of the average Russian a misery.  He blames not only the export of food, but also the bad distribution and delays, which result in the food supplies arriving in a decayed state.

DEARTH OF SKILL

            The food and housing conditions have had a serious effect upon the industrialisation schemes.  Not only are the workers unable to devote all their energies to their machines, for they suffer from a great dearth of fats, but they fly from one town to another in search of better food and better houses.  The labour turn over has thus become alarming and no factory has a stable number of hands.  The exodus from the Donetz Basin has led to crowded stations and disorganised transport and coal plans and to countless miseries for the masses who flee from the hunger and disease of that ill-famed district.

            Bewildered by the fight of workers factory manager find their plans also menaced by the dearth of skilled workmen and of engineers.  The problem of the future is how to prepare the technical specialists in sufficient numbers to run the factories, which are now being constructed.  The reliable works manager and the foreman with authority and initiative are also lacking, for it is difficult to produce such men under a system where freedom plays no part.  This shortage of labour, of skilled mechanics and of foremen with initiative does not augur well for the future.  Organisation has been extremely weak and there are few countries in the world where ‘muddling through’ has been as common as in Russia.

            The system of dictatorship of one party has lead to many defects in the running of industry.  There has been a tendency to concentrate the leading industrial positions in the hands of the Communist members and although there are many outstanding posts in the Soviet factories, mines, works and ships which are held by non-party men, politics have too often entered into the purely economic sphere.  The desire of party members to obtain triumphs and victories, to claim for their factories a ‘Bolshevist tempo’ or to beat their rival factories in Socialist competition has lead to high figures being obtained at the expense of quality.  A childish wish to break records leads to the construction of giant machines, whose size makes a dazzling impression in the newspapers, rather than some small essential part whose dimensions may be insignificant but which is none the less vital for production.

             The inferior position of the engineers of the old school has until now been prevented them from interfering with hot-headed schemes of party enthusiasts.  The fear with which they were inspired throughout last winter, when many were arrested for sabotage and many were shot had a serious effect upon their work.  Some preferred to escape their responsibilities and to join the ranks of the common workers, lest they should be arrested later for mistakes, which might have occurred.  They were treated as a class apart, as bourgeois and although their salaries were high it was difficult for them to obtain as much as the ordinary unskilled worker, for the latter was in the second category.  The privileges, which were given to the children of workers, were denied to the children of the bourgeois engineers.

            The result of these conditions has been a serious situation in the three basic points of Soviet economic life, coal, iron and steel, and transport, which will affect, other parts of the Plan.  There are breaches in the coal plan and many factories will have to remain idle on account of lack of fuel.  The situation in the coalfields was the subject of a decree issued by the executive committee of the Communist Party on August 15th.  This stated that, despite its growth, the coal industry was lagging behind and that the non-fulfilment of its plan created a menace to the pig-iron programme.  Today the coal problem occupies the same position as the grain problem a few years ago, and has become the most important task before the country. A new mechanisation scheme was proposed and the plan of coal production was raised to 14,000,000 tons for the year 1933.

            On September 8th Izvestia published a decree of the Supreme Economic Council upon the grave situation of the iron and steel industry.  It drew attention to the extremely unsatisfactory fulfilment of the Plan, to bad economic and technical direction, to the neglect of the factories, to the rubbish and dirt scattered in the courtyards, to the deplorable shortage of labour, to the intolerable equalisation of wages and the absence of pieceworkDrastic changes were proposed to improve the situation.  It is, above all, in transport that progress of the Five-Years Plan is being checked.  Transport has become a danger spot in the whole Plan.  Large quantities of ore, grain, food and other supplies are lying idle because of the disorganisation on the railways.

            These defects in the basic industries are common to most Soviet factories.  They call for a drastic remedy and for a change in policy if the Five-Years Plan is to progress.  This remedy and this change in policy are to be found in Stalin’s speech of June 23rd, which now guides the economic policy of the Soviet Union.  Its six points are daily being drummed into the public mind by newspapers and wireless.

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October 16th 1931

THE REAL RUSSIA

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YOUTH AND THE FUTURE

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III:- A BLESSED WORD

From a Correspondent (Gareth Jones)

            Among some young peasants there is an enthusiasm for socialisation in which a love of machines plays a great part.  This is a favourable sign for the future of socialistic agriculture in the Soviet Union.  It is being developed by the spreading of education on Communist lines throughout the country.  The fight against illiteracy is being taken with admirable energy.  Campaigns to encourage the peasants to study are carried on by the Communist Pioneers and the Komsomoltsi (young Communists), and pamphlets and books are spread by the million.  The electrification of the villages will impress youth.  The clubs are rallying points for young people of the villages and by radio and visitors from the towns, by films and lectures, their minds are being moulded along Communist lines.  A battle royal is being waged for the mind and heart of the young peasant.  Will he cling to the “Land and Liberty” ideal of his parents and grandparents or will he fit himself into a socialistic system of agriculture.  Will the peasant be happy as a cog in a great agricultural wheel, or will he always yearn for his little patch, his own cow, and freedom to buy and sell as he wishes?  The next few decades will show.

            The collectivisation of agriculture, which, at the sacrifice of happiness of the peasant gives the government control over Russia’s grain, and the businesslike programme outlined by Stalin in June, are two factors which point to a coming improvement in the industrial situation and to a strengthening of the regime itself.  A third factor is the springing up of this new generation, which has it’s schooling in the Soviet State and has no recollection of life in pre-Revolutionary days.  It is upon the youth of the country that the Bolshevist leaders set their highest hopes; and it is upon them that powerful influences are working which in time will result in the emergence of a new type of citizen.  The main influences are Communist education the worship of the machine, anti-religious agitation, militarization and the propaganda for world revolution.

“PRODUCTION”

            Communist education now lays the greatest stress upon the part, which the future citizen must play in production.  Three years ago the “polytechnical” school was introduced.  Under the “polytechnical “system each school has an agreement with a factory or with a collective farm which the pupils visit regularly to study methods of production.  It is remarkable to note what importance is attached to the word “production”, a word, which is surrounded with a halo of respect.  At an early age children are introduced to factory life and learn to handle machines.  An enthusiasm for technical things is engendered, and the knowledge, which children have of machinery, is surprising.  As it was the ideal of the Prussian child to become an officer, so it is now the ideal to become ideal of a Soviet child to become an engineer.  At present a widespread campaign is being conducted for compulsory education for all and the cult of the machine will thus be extended to the farthest parts of the Soviet Union.  Processions of children are seen marching with banners bearing such inscriptions as “Obligatory education is the basis of the cultural revolution”; “Give us technical power”; “For a seven-year education”; “Let us fight for the Plan, for the speed, for the carrying out the Plan in four years.”  Technical and political toys are encouraged among children.  In shop windows one can see “A Mass Political Toy according to the resolution of the 16th Congress of the All-Russian Communist Party” called “To catch up and surpass the Capitalist Countries, the carrying out of the Five-Years Plan in Industry.”

            Political education is given in schools along the lines of the principle “History is the record of class struggles.”  Such an education is a narrow basis for the rearing of a new generation, especially when one considers that music, art and literature are all subordinated to a political aim.  “Art is agitation” such is the teaching that guides the Communist thinkers.  It is inconceivable that there should not be some day a reaction against this limited conception of all branches of learning as weapons of class warfare.

            Anti-religious propaganda is carried on among youth and is achieving distinct success, for the children readily believe what is taught in the schools. A religious Leningrad mother bewailed the fact that her 10-year-old daughter had recently returned from her class and had demanded: “Show me God!  You cannot.  There is no God.”  Throughout the country posters proclaim: “Religion is a weapon for oppression”, while cartons lampoon the priest as the tool of the Capitalist and a friend of the interventionist.  The Communists try to establish a close connection between drink and religion.  Posters frequently to be observed are “Alcohol is the friend of religion” and “The man who makes home-brew and the illegal trader in spirits are allies of the Pope.”  This bitter propaganda often produces an effect quite different from that which it intends.  Adherents of religious sects are numerous and among the Communists themselves there are many who pay lip service to atheism but who at heart are believers.  On priest told of the Communist in his village who on his deathbed confessed his belief in God.  There are many thousands of Christians enrolled in the Young Communist League.  “I am a believer,” said a schoolteacher, “but I cannot repeat Communist speeches as eloquently as any Commissar in Moscow.  If I do not become a Young Communist I shall not receive a good education, so I pretend to rejoice in their long-winded foreign words like ‘industrialisation’, but what my tongue says my heart does not believe.”  Never the less, among young people religion is now losing ground and together with the lessening of the religious basis, stable family is in the towns also losing its importance.

WAR AND PEACE

            An alarming and potent influence upon youth is the extreme militarisation of the country.  A jingoistic spirit is being fostered in the Soviet Union and the firm belief in the inevitability of war, which is to result in the inevitability of the war which is to result from the clash of the Capitalistic and Communist system leads to an intensification of war training. It is difficult to escape the atmosphere of war-scare. In the theatre one reads the appeal in large red and white letters: “Be prepared at any moment to defend your Socialistic fatherland.”  In the interval between two acts of a brilliant performance in an opera house a gas mask demonstration may take place.  Dominating the militarisation of the Soviet Union lies the fear of foreign intervention, and its guiding principle is the quotation from Lenin: “No revolution can last unless it can defend itself.”  Lenin’s study of Clausewitz is today bearing fruit in the stress laid upon military science.  Members of the Young Communist League are urged to be leaders in the task of spreading military knowledge.  A powerful instrument for the training of the civilian population is the Ossoariakhim (Society for Aviation and Chemical Defence), which now numbers 11,000,000 members.  This has numerous branches in factories and collective farms, where men and women alike receive training in shooting and in the use of gas masks.  In many factories regular military exercises are obligatory for party members and the young Communists.  Communists share this keenness on preparedness for war in the villages and even peasants living thousand of miles away from the borders have received anti-gas practice.  In one collective farm the church, which had been closed, was to be turned in to a house of Culture, a section of which was to be devoted to military purposes.

            In spite of the thorough militarisation of Soviet Russia, there is no feeling of aggression, but a keen desire for peace, based on the necessity of good relations with the capitalist powers, essential for the industrialisation of the country.  Nothing is less desirable to the Kremlin than a foreign adventure, which would threaten the fulfilment of the Five-Years Plan.  Moreover the Soviet Union is now concentrating upon her own affairs and eager to realise “Socialism in one country”, a policy, which Trotsky condemns from afar as “National Communism” and a betrayal of Marx and Lenin.  It is true that the inevitability of world revolution and the ultimate formation of a World Union of Socialist Soviet Republics are convictions as unshakeable as ever.  But in spite of the world crisis they are no longer represented as imminent realities.  As a consequence the youth of Russia is encouraged to devote itself to the economic tasks of national construction and the prestige of the Third International has suffered a sad decline.  No longer the headquarters of the leaders of the Government, it has become the resort of nonentities and it has to subordinate its revolutionary ardour to the cold common sense of the Foreign Office, which prefers not to risk valuable credits and machinery for the sake of a weak revolution in Germany.  Serious disturbances abroad or revolts, which the Russian Communists would be morally bound to aid would be a setback to their plans of industrialisation and are depreciated until the time when the Soviet Union will be stronger.

            Such are the outstanding influences to which the younger generation in Russia are exposed.  The power of the Communist Party to mould youth along the lines they desire is increased by the unity of the party, which has been achieve after a bitter struggle against right and left opposition.  Rarely has there been less dissension within the ranks as to the policy to be pursued.  Never the less, the movement in Soviet Russia to transform men and women into the cogs of a great productive wheel and to crush all thought which clashes with the official philosophy is faced with two insurmountable barriers.  These are the originality of the Russian mind and the human passion for liberty which is intensified by tyranny and which will increase with the spreading of education.

 

 

 

 

 

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